Baby it’s cold outside, we need to make soup
Baby it’s cold outside, it better be good,
Baby it’s cold outside…
Hi beautiful peeps,
How are you doing with the lockdown? What are you doing for entertainment?
My partner and I play a lot of scrabble but I always lose, my partner is an author, among his many aliases is The “Walking Dictionary”. You can imagine how much fun it is for me, especially when he scrabbles out, which is every second game. Can someone please suggest a game where I will have a chance to win!
I have also been cooking some bellisimo dishes for you and the first dish I am going to share is this super-duper, flavour-packed lentil soup. It has a kick and a punch. It’s just so tasty. Can you tell I love the flavour of this soup yet? I used to sell this soup it's sooo good. I make a pot all for myself (no one else likes lentils in my house) and I literally eat the whole pot over a period of 4 days.
My stomach goes into action and my intestine becomes one of the world’s great trouble spots (I don’t do legumes well) but I don’t care. Sometimes, you have to play a high stakes game, and I swear it’s worth the rumble in the jungle.
Ingredients
2 cups red dry lentils, rinsed and drained
1 large onion diced
1 carrot diced
6 cloves garlic crushed
6 cups water
1-2 vegetable stock cubes
½ cup of boiling hot water
1-2 tablespoons oil
Juice of ½ lemon
Spices
20 fresh curry leaves
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
1 ½ teaspoons ginger powder or 1 tablespoon of freshly grated ginger
1 teaspoon curry
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
Salt and pepper according to taste
Method
Place lentils in a pot with 6 cups of water and diced carrot bring to the boil, then lower the heat and let it simmer, uncovered. Removing any foam that rises to the top while it’s cooking.
Dissolve 1 - 2 (I use 1 ½ ) vegetable stock cubes in the ½ cup of hot water and set aside. (I use 1 ½ ) While the lentils are cooking, start to prepare the spices.
In a frying pan, heat one tablespoon of oil over medium heat then add the mustard and cumin seeds and wait for the seeds to pop. As soon as the seeds pop, add the onion, curry leaves, garlic and ginger, but only if it’s fresh ginger. If it’s not fresh ginger then wait to add with the remaining dry spices, and stir for one minute. Add the remaining spices and stir for another minute, you may need another ½-1 tablespoon of oil.
Stir the cooked spices into the lentil pot, add the stock and let it simmer until lentils are cooked through. Check the consistency of the soup, if it’s too thick for your liking you can adjust consistency by adding more water. Turn off the heat, stir in lemon juice and cover with a lid and let the flavours amalgamate. And you’re done!
Stay safe and be well